DDT (12)
Member
Posts: 4120
Sometimes ya just gotta go...
Winter Springs, FL - Occasionally...
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« on: February 17, 2016, 04:04:16 AM » |
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Tour de Dixie (Part Five)
Not a cloud in the sky the next morning! I just barely made the buffet breakfast in time, though, but everything worked out… Yeah, I was moving a tad slow this time, as things the night before… Well, while not being particularly stimulating, things had been rather jovial, and they had also gone on a bit longer than I’d anticipated… And of course there were those shots… poured, not fired.
It wasn’t too cold either! This was the first morning in quite a while I hadn’t dreaded dealing with, what for me anyway, is a definite drawback to riding this time of year, even down in this neck of the woods. All the omens were positive, though, my head was clearing, and my body was starting to respond to commands appropriately. Yep, I threw a leg over ALI’s saddle with high hopes indeed!
What a fabulous day! It had been a few years since I’d ridden the roads I’d chosen, so there was no sense of ‘routine’ to this day’s ride, but things were familiar enough to preclude navigational errors or other boo-boos. Unusually efficient travel this day; but, once in a while, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn!
I eased into the hamlet of Mayo, FL, wondering if I’d find any BBQ. A decade and more ago, several of us had ventured here a few times on our rides for just such a thing… but… Recent reports had been circulating that things had changed, and Q was no longer available there… or at least at that particular place. Well, it was!!!
Yep, that same tiny restaurant was still there, and they did indeed serve BBQ. I found a parking spot right in front and proceeded to venture inside… I was on a mission! Things looked pretty much the same as I remembered them, the staff was quite friendly, and the aroma percolating from behind the kitchen door was exciting my salivary glands much more so than the motel breakfast bar had…
It was really too soon for me to be eating again, but I didn’t want to pass on this opportunity… so… I got a pork sandwich and some coleslaw to go, then managed to squeeze them into one of our bike’s saddle bags… So far, so good!
Not much seems to have changed in the town of Mayo. The same slow pace, almost no traffic, clean, but nothing resembling or even hinting of hustle and bustle or any sense of urgency. The clock on top of the courthouse was still stuck… perhaps it still read the same as it had the last time I was through there many years before… but I don’t recall now what time that might have been.
The only noticeable change I encountered was the lady who now owned the ‘Tumbleweed Smokehouse’ where’d I’d just stopped… She’s only owned that place for three years. Still, I truly like this type of community, and I always get a connected feeling whenever I visit one…
Down the road several miles from Mayo beside the Suwanee River is another tiny village, and just across the bridge and right on the river’s bank just as you enter that town from the west is a public park. In years past I’d stopped at that park many times on one of my many, many ride ‘n read outings… day rides to and from my home once upon a time.
I used to check out books from our local public library to carry along as I rode. I’d stop at many spots similar to this and read awhile, then get back on the road and ride some more. We pulled into this park once again, and we made our way to a picnic table for dining on my most recent food purchase.
The sandwich was pretty good, but it would have been better had I eaten it at the restaurant while it was still warm. You can’t assign a value to the contribution a ‘setting’ can add to an event, however, and it can often override other usual aspects… like it did this time.
It was remarkable how nice this had turned out… The relaxing ride down there, the flood of memories, the easy pace of life in this area, the water flowing by on nature’s own timetable… And good food made much better! I lingered awhile as I simply drank in all that was occurring around me… and within me…
The last phase of the ride itself was the least exciting. More familiar roads and sights, increasing traffic, especially as I drew ever nearer to Orlando, and a significant shift in my thinking were all happening at once. I was now having to focus on driving matters largely at the expense of thoughts about other more spiritual pursuits. Oh well, the pay-off would be the time I would be spending with my daughter and her family.
Funny about that… I suppose I have a somewhat different feeling about relationships than what might be considered more conventional. I don’t try to crowd ever increasing amounts of time and activity into them, preferring instead to maintain at least some distance, if no more than simply an arm’s length. I don’t want to inject myself too deeply into anyone else’s life, per se, but I do want to be part of certain ones. I guess I also want to maintain at the same time a ‘personal space’ for myself, too.
My ex and I had considered a retirement home in the same town and very near our daughter, but after giving it much thought, we ruled that out. We chose instead a town within an easy drive from her, but not right on top at all.
We’ve always had close contact, and we’d been able to always be there when needed, but they, and we, all had our separate lives, circles of friends… and freedom. We were all ‘close’ to each other, but… we were on tap without being on top. The expectation level in such an arrangement is different and far less complex, I think.
We didn’t get involved in the minor drama of day to day living, but we shared all of the major events and situations… I imagine this resulted in the shaping of our relationship with far more positive experiences than anything negative… producing for us an overall more satisfying outcome. Most folks would not agree with this, I don’t think, but it seemed to work rather well for us.
With me now living in Alabama, our time together is hugely reduced, of course, and that has left us with a more pressing need to address that… like now. The phone call I’d received the other day was much more than merely a ‘courtesy invitation’… It was a ‘reminder’ that included an unspoken message that I was delinquent with my duty, and I wasn’t going to get away with it without some measure of protest!
Am I glad I’d made this ride after all! In what has turned out to probably be one of the best visits I’ve had with her and her family, I now look back and think how it almost didn’t happen… at least right then. The weather, especially the forecast, would have provided an entirely legitimate and a genuinely convenient excuse not to bother, and there would have been no hard feelings. On the other hand, the void would have grown a bit more, and too much distance would have been created where very little needs to exist.
And the ride itself had been most pleasant! Yeah, I had caught up with light rain the first day, but that amounted to little more than a distraction, and just being in the saddle compensated for that far more than simply raising it to the tolerable level. The second day’s ride had been truly special, though, and all that went with such an outing seemed to have been enhanced and amplified. WOW! I sure do like my life!!!
Nothing particularly remarkable happened while I was at my dear daughter’s house… at least in terms of notable events or activities. However, I had an opportunity to spend some truly ‘quality time’ with each of those fine folks, and that is always the real reward in such things anyway… I left there thinking, “I’ve got to do much more of this!”
I left her house around mid-day, but not to worry, as I was planning to make a two day ride out of it anyway… and, I should have had just enough of a window weather-wise to accommodate that as per the updated and revised forecast… but I couldn’t dawdle! Although the trip could be done in one day, and I used to routinely do that, I’ve come to ‘indulge’ myself more and more these days… Imagine that…
I rode about 175 miles before ever getting off of ALI. I’d purposely stretched this out until she needed gas, mostly because I had an idea I’d revisit that lounge in Thomasville that evening if I could get that far… Didn’t happen, though… Funny how life is what actually happens to us while we’re on our way to do something else entirely, huh…
I checked my voicemail at that first stop and discovered I already had several messages… That almost never happens, so I was a bit curious what might have happened in the last few hours. This series of calls totally changed my route and plans!
Perhaps I’ll get into that at another time, but for now let me just say that one of the best aspects of my life these days is how things can spin on a dime and lead me in an entirely different and completely unanticipated direction! So far so good, though, so I don’t dread at all these sudden breaks in ‘predictably’ followed by periods of the ‘completely unexpected’… I not only didn’t make it to Thomasville that evening, I didn’t make it to my place the next day either…
DDT
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